Rants and raves about the mess of higher education in the United States.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Student Says Rape, Jury Says Rape, Poo-Bah Says “Nope. Case Closed.”

By Professor Doom

Our campuses are
basically kingdoms. I’ve mentioned many times how fiefdoms, almost none of
which have anything to do with education, soak up much of the student loan
money, but today I want to talk about the immense power the Poo-Bah, the guy
who’s running the whole school has, because he is the law on campus, regardless
of what any stinkin’ piece of paper says.

I’ve spoken
before of the kangaroo
campus court system, and the gentle reader should put very little stock
in rulings made there, even if, as the university is prone to announce, the
findings in the system are “unanimous.” The system is generally rigged, and is
used to cover most everything on campus, from minor policy details to the most
grotesque rape.

Whenever some
dispute occurs, a “jury” is convened, a panel of faculty (or possibly purely
admin). Regardless of composition, these poor souls generally must do whatever
admin tells them to do…if this committee disagrees with what admin wants, the
gentle reader can rest assured they’re only making that disagreeable ruling
because there’s simply no way to assert anything different. To really hammer
this point home, I’ve seen a committee unanimously determine that it’s simply a
matter of policy that 12 divided by 5 is 2.35—I’m serious, the five of them
(one of them with a Ph.D. in Math Education) put together did that calculation
to two decimal places even after I tried to explain it was incorrect.

I honestly don’t
think the committee was as incompetent as they claimed, but I relate the story
because that’s generally how far a committee will go to appease admin.

“…a senior sociology major at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville, went to the emergency room to report that she had just been raped
by a classmate. Campus police arrived to take her statement, and the nurse
examiner found a bruise on her cervix, which often indicates sexual
assault. “

When there’s a campus crime, things go a bit differently than what a
citizen might think. The report doesn’t go to the police, it goes to the
“campus police,” which basically is about as legit as your typical retail store
security: they’re only going to do whatever the store manager (or the Poo-Bah
in this case) tells them to do.

The basic facts are as follows:

She hadn't been drinking. She said she had told her
assailant "no" at least seven times. She told a friend she'd been
assaulted almost immediately after she got the classmate out of her apartment —
and then made a report to law enforcement within hours. And while text messages
showed that Reed's classmate tried to text her the next day, she never texted
back. Instead, she reported the incident to both campus police and the
college's Title IX Office.

Because sex crimes and sexual discrimination are so common on campus,
and because such things are routinely covered up, our Federal government passed
a law, “Title IX” in an attempt to stop it.

Sadly, all the new law has done has created another huge wasteful
fiefdom on campus. You really can’t use a law to create integrity, as many
campuses have demonstrated.

She made her report to the Title IX fiefdom, and they leaped into
action, as per Federal law. They investigate, and I can respect that takes
time. Four months later:

“…the Title IX Office found that Reed's classmate had
not violated any university policies. The seven-page report never even mentions
the bruise on her cervix. Instead, it dwells at length on the fact that she may
have misstated whether she was in the bathroom or in the car when she sent a
text message to a friend following the incident — a fact even the report
acknowledges was "not in and of itself very significant."

So we have an
obvious whitewash. Federal law allows the student to appeal this finding.Again, Federal law mandates a committee must
be formed and to make a ruling. How’d that go?

Great! She won on
appeal. I have to admit, I’ve never seen anyone win on appeal—the system is so
rigged, I’ve literally seen the same “judges” for the appeal be the same
“judges” who made the original ruling, and literally destroy any new evidence
presented…if they’re following admin orders the first time, they’ve going to do
it again. It’s a stupid system all the way through.

But, somehow, she
won the appeal. Good for her, but it’s pointless. There was obvious
whitewashing by the Title IX office, so clearly that’s what admin wanted. What
will admin do since the evidence was so overwhelming that this Federally
mandated panel had to concede the student’s claim?

The student is still fighting, but it’s a
lost cause even as I wish her luck. You can’t win on campus, they hold all the
cards. Maybe she should try the “real” criminal justice system, not that it’s
great shakes either.

There are two points I want to make with
this. The first is straightforward: no matter what happens on campus, the
Poo-Bah can bury it. This ultimately explains why it’s so common to have sex
scandals run on campus for a decade or much more before finally being caught.

While not as horrific, another important
issue is we’ve trusted the rulers of higher ed with hundreds of billions of
student loan money, because written policies say they’ll act with integrity.

In light of the above, which didn’t even
make any national news…why would anyone remotely suspect our Poo-Bahs are
treating education (and all that sweet, sweet, student loan money) any more
respectfully than they do Federal law or victims of sex crimes?